At one of the Ibidem Events in the 1980s, Jeff Busby was selling the Paul Fox cups. Howard Lyons, who had a devilish sense of humor, baited Busby by claiming that the Bertram cups would hold a larger load than the Fox cups.

A heated argument ensured, stoked mightily by Howard, and after about half an hour Busby was literally foaming at the mouth as he declared that the Fox cups obviously were larger and would hold the larger load.

At that point, Howard walked over to Busby's display of Fox cups, reached in his pocket and removed a single Bertram cup which he then, wordlessly, dropped over the Fox cup, covering it completely.

I've heard that Busby didn't speak to Howard for a long, long time after that.

Later, I pulled the same trick on Howard. I got him into an argument about how he had described a trick in Ibidem. He was adamant that it proceeded, say, A, B, C.

I told him he was wrong, he had described it as C, B, A.

We then argued for about 20 minutes and I let Howard go forth with all the reasons he would have never described it that way. At the point where he was most effusive, I reached in my pocket and removed a photocopy of the trick and pointed out I was right and he was wrong.

Howard's response: not giving an inch, he said, well, he should have described it as A, B, C.